Game of Life
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The Game of Life is a cellular constructed by mathematician John Conway and popularized by Martin Gardner. The game starts with an infinite lattice of squares. Any cell is either has a bacterium (or is alive) or does not have a bacterium (is dead) and only a finite number start alive. The 8 surrounding squares of each cell make up its neighbours. At each iteration of the game the states of cells change based on the following rules:
- 1 Any living cell with one or no neigbors becomes too lonely and dies.
- 2 Any living cell with four or more neigbors becomes overcrowded and dies.
- 3 Any cell with two or three neighbors that is alive stays alive.
- 4 Any cell that has exactly three neighbors and is not alive becomes alive.
Each round (or generation) of the game occurs simultaneously. That is, each of the four rules is applied to each square at the same time.
Mathematical Interest
The Game of Life is Turing complete and started off research into cellular automata.